This is a book about madness. Photographer Timm Kölln spent five years travelling the world photographing the professional peloton just moments after riders crossed the finish line. And madness is what he has preserved.

The hollow eyes, the crazed facial expressions, the camouflage patterns that dirt and helmets make on faces and hair – the madness that makes these guys go all out during a race and the madness that sticks to them until the skin stops bristling with nerves, the heart rate falls, the blood stops pushing out all sound other than the beating of their heart.

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Davide Formolo (Cannondale-Garmin) delivered for the team at this year’s Giro d’Italia with a popular solo win on stage four. Called up only a fortnight before the start, he hadn’t specifically trained for the race, which leaves us wondering whether he might have bettered his overall 31st place if he’d targetted this race. Keeping the pink glow going, he looks back at his first Grand Tour.

Created in 1993 to enable amateur cyclists to personally experience a stage of each year’s Tour de France, L’Etape de Tour is THE cyclosportive. This year’s event takes place on Sunday 19th July over 142km from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to La Toussuire.

All places are taken for this year’s Etape (unless you get a place with a tour operator or through a charity). Places go fast as soon as registration opens so if you want to get a jump on proceedings for next year, take a minute to register with ASO Challenges. Registration details are here. Also, follow l’Etape on Twitter and Facebook for news all year round.

“We’ve tried to go down roads and go through places that are far more interesting than the number of watts we’re putting out and the speed we’re averaging.” Gus Morton

The Australian cycling site, Cycling Tips, just goes from strength to strength in my book. Up on the site now is Thereabouts, a 45-minute documentary made with Gus and Lachlan Morton about their experience riding from Port Macquarie to Uluru – riding over 2,000km in just 12 days. Why did they do it? To reconnect with the reasons why they started riding in the first place. Click hereto read more about their story.

All of the history and excitement of the world’s most famous one-day bicycle race in one coffee-table book. Paris-Roubaix: A Journey Through Hellis an essential read for anyone interested in this spectacular race.

It was a stage of action and drama at Tour Down Under. The GC leaders battled for bonus seconds. A first WorldTour victory went to Jasper Philipsen after Caleb Ewan was relegated for head butting. Race leader Patrick Bevin was involved in a crash and had to chase to get back with the peloton.